Compared to... Sony DSC-H5

We'll start by looking at how the H9 compares with its predecessor, the seven megapixel DSC-H5. We've included comparisons at ISO 80, 400 and 800 (for the H9's higher ISO settings please see later in the review).

As these crops show the extra million pixels or so you get with the H9 don't bring a lot to the table; there's a small increase in detail, and the H9 output looks a touch more sharpened and has marginally better corner to corner consistency (unless you zoom right out).

Whilst both images have a nice consumer-friendly color and good contrast, neither is particularly impressive - the H9 inherits most of what we complained about with the H5: a slight softness, a touch of fringing, a slightly over-processed appearance. It also has very mild noise reduction artefacts in areas of solid color, and it's worth noting that the H9's image is much more compressed than the H5 - and there's no way you can change that: the H9, shockingly for a camera at this level, has no 'quality' settings at all. The lack of raw is one thing, but no control over JPEG compression is incomprehensible.